Re: [gentoo-user] How to update portage offline with minimal impact?

[Iain Buchanan <iaindb@netspace.net.au>]

On Thu, 2008-01-03 at 13:16 -0800, BRM wrote:

[snip]

> However, that is not a solution I can use as I might not be the long
> term maintainer, and I'd like an easier solution as it requires a lot
> of work to download stuff. I'd like a solution similar to the
> following:
> 
> # tar xvjf /portage-sources-<data>.tar.bz2 -C /my-portage-sources
> # tar xvjf /portage-<date>.tar.bz2 -C /my-portage
> # emerge --sync --portage-source /my-portage
> # emerge world -vuD --sources /my-portage-sources

This has come up before, so I know some people here have a bit of
experience with doing it.  Essentially it's possible.  I think the steps
required are:

- download a portage snapshot as you would in an initial install, or
create your own from another gentoo machine (more info here:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=5#installing_portage)
- you may need to run `emerge --metadata` after unpacking it, or
something like that - someone else can comment here :)
- then follow your manual download instructions: `emerge -ufpDN world`
and download all these packages on another box
- transfer the packages to /usr/portage/distfiles, and check you got
them all with `emerge -ufDN world`.  You should have no fetch errors.
- then go! `emerge -uvaDN world`

Notes:
- when creating your own snapshot,
exclude /usr/portage/distfiles, /usr/portage/packages, (and others?)
- I would recommend -N as you might see some new features since you
haven't updated in a while

Hopefully someone will fix any holes I left, otherwise this should work!
-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

There's a lot to be said for not saying a lot.

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